


Winter Nights

by laurus_nobilis



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Post-Book 14: Cold Days
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-15
Updated: 2018-09-15
Packaged: 2019-07-12 09:47:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15992693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laurus_nobilis/pseuds/laurus_nobilis
Summary: Right after the Snap, Bucky finds himself in the middle of a snowy forest. Luckily, he meets a wizard who claims he can help him go home.It's never that easy.





	Winter Nights

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2018 round of Iddy Iddy Bang Bang! The part about letting my id run wild includes the dumb TDF-ish title.
> 
> For the record, this is completely unrelated to my _other_ MCU/TDF fic.

Bucky woke up somewhere cold, if ‘waking up’ was the right term at all. He didn’t have the words for whatever it was that had happened, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to. He certainly didn’t have the luxury of time for an existential crisis at the moment. How and why he was still alive were questions to ponder later. Right now, all he knew was that he needed to go back to the fight. Given that this place couldn’t have been any more different from Wakanda, that was going to prove difficult.

He was standing in a snowy forest. It wasn’t the kind of muddy, compacted snow that people or even animals had walked on, but the sparkling blue-white kind that looked very, very new, and it reached almost up to his knees. There was a deep, heavy silence all around. The naked branches on the trees were perfectly still. It was one of the most beautiful places Bucky had ever seen. He also knew, deep in his bones, that it was dangerous. 

Perhaps it was because of that, or perhaps he was still running on adrenaline from the battle, but he couldn’t stop his knee-jerk reaction when he heard the crunch of footsteps behind him. He turned around and threw a punch at whoever was dumb enough to sneak up to him.

 It was like hitting a force field. 

“What the hell?” 

“I could ask you the same,” said the man standing in front of him. He was very tall, all angles, and he wore a long leather duster. One of his arms was raised as if he was holding a shield, and in the other one he held a long wooden staff. “You always greet people like this?”

“Only when they show up at my six,” he replied.

He relaxed his stance, however. If the guy wasn’t looking for trouble, maybe he could help, or at least tell him where they were. The stranger lowered his arm as well.

“Good old-fashioned paranoia. I can relate.”

Weirdly enough, that made Bucky relax for real. At least enough to ask the most pressing question in his mind at the moment.

“Do you know what this place is?”

“Wait, you’re… not from here?” The man narrowed his eyes at Bucky. “Are you human?”

“Last I checked.” He sighed. He didn’t like the implications of that question at all. “So. I _am_ in a different planet, then.”

“Well, not quite. It’s a magical realm.”

“Sure, why not. A magic—”

Before he could finish that thought, he heard a series of clicking sounds coming from his arm. Then it simply stopped working. Just like that. Bucky stared at his limp hand, confused, and tried to twitch his fingers. Nothing.

“What…?”

“Oh, great,” the stranger groaned. He looked somewhat guilty, which made no sense. “That’s not armor, is it?”

“Prosthetic. Why?”

“Because that’s on me, then,” he sighed. “Hi. Harry Dresden. I’m a wizard.”

It said something about Bucky’s life that, at this point, he didn’t even think that was weird. He jumped right to the pragmatic conclusion instead.

“Great. Then can you send me home?”

“I can try, but I don’t want to make any promises. Depends on where ‘home’ is and how you got here.”

“I’m… not sure how I got here, that’s the problem. We were fighting in Wakanda, and then— then we lost. I don’t know what Thanos did, exactly.” He frowned, staring at his hands. The hands that he had just seen turn to dust, moments ago. It made no sense at all. It was terrible to think about, but… “I think I might be dead.”

“I doubt it. I could probably tell if you were a ghost,” said Dresden. His tone was reassuring, or tried to, but suddenly there was something closed off about his expression.

“You still look like you know a lot more than you’re telling.”

“Well, of course. I’m a wizard.” There was a short pause, but Bucky refused to acknowledge the sad attempt at a joke, so Dresden sighed and moved on. “Look, this is hard to explain. First of all, yes, I can take you out of the Nevernever and into the mortal world. But it’s going to be _my_ mortal world, and I’m pretty sure it’s not the same as yours.”

“How the hell would you know that?”

“We don’t have a Wakanda.”

He was still hiding stuff, Bucky was certain of that. He could also tell that pushing the subject right now wasn’t going to help. He pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to figure out what to do - or at least ask - next.

“Right,” he said after a second. “Would going to your mortal world help?”

“I don’t know if it’d get you closer to yours,” Dresden admitted. “But it’s going to be a lot safer than staying here, and I’ll have access to information that might help.”

“Looks like my best choice,” Bucky agreed. His _only_ choice, more likely. He wasn’t very confident about it, but at least it gave him the illusion of a little control. “How do we do this?”

Dresden smiled at him, more than a little smugly. Then he did something with his staff that Bucky didn’t understand. A moment later, it was as if a doorway had opened in mid-air. On the other side, a cityscape was clearly visible. As much as Bucky would have liked to keep his cool, he knew he looked impressed. He couldn’t help it.

“That’s—”

“Chicago,” Dresden said. “Coming?”

… right. Why not. Bucky shrugged to himself and followed him through the magical door. This was his life now.

 

* * *

 

They stepped out in a quiet corner, without any other people nearby. Only a stray cat stared at them for a moment before getting on its way again. Bucky looked around, curious. The way they had come through was simply gone. There was nothing but a wall behind them.

“It’s a bit disorienting the first few times, I know,” Dresden told him. “But don’t worry. From now on it’s just good old-fashioned walking.”

“Look,” Bucky said, trying very hard not to roll his eyes, “I get the impulse to show off, but my life was crazy enough already and you wouldn’t believe what the last couple of days have been like. I don’t want to be impressed, I just want an explanation.”

Dresden looked almost disappointed by that, but to his credit, he got over it pretty quickly.

“All right,” he agreed. “But not here. I know a place where we can talk without anything bothering us.”

“Fair enough.”

They didn’t have to walk very far. That was good for Bucky’s impatience. He didn’t say anything else until they arrived, since he didn’t want any more distractions. The wizard seemed to get the hint. After a few silent minutes, Bucky found himself standing at a building’s entrance and looking in.

The pub where Dresden had taken him didn’t exactly make Bucky feel safe and at ease. It was a nice place, sure enough, even though the apparently random placement of the columns and fans made it look messy. He figured most people wouldn’t mind having a couple of beers there. The problem was, he wasn’t fond of the idea of getting into a smallish underground room with no good exit routes.

Dresden wasn’t kidding about sharing his paranoia, it seemed, because he caught on right away just from Bucky stalling for a second near the door.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he said, “doesn’t look like a great place to be when a fight breaks. But that’s the thing. Fights _don’t_ break here at Mac’s. It’s neutral territory.”

“What if someone decides they don’t care about that?”

“Mac takes his neutrality very seriously.”

Bucky wasn’t entirely convinced, but he also knew when he wasn’t going to get any clearer answers. He followed Dresden into the pub. They greeted the owner, a big man who merely nodded at them and continued with his work. Bucky liked him already. He picked the free table that made him the least nervous, even though none of the choices were very good. The setup of the furniture was weird - so weird that it had to be on purpose, but whatever method there was to this madness, it was very different from the priorities he was used to. He settled for the best compromise he could find between having his back covered and keeping his eyes on the front door.

Dresden didn’t comment on it, which was nice of him. He just sat down on the chair in front of Bucky’s. Mac approached them with a couple of beer bottles, left them on the table, and walked away again without a word.

“You must have a lot of questions,” the wizard said as soon as they were alone. Well, as alone as they could be in a semi-crowded pub, anyway.

“Lots. There’s a really pressing one right now, though,” Bucky said. “You introduced yourself very early on. But you never asked _my_ name.”

That seemed to take Dresden by surprise. He tried to hide it, but Bucky didn’t miss his surprised blink.

“Well, I was just—”

“I’m not dumb, Dresden,” he interrupted. “You know who I am. Not the same world, my ass.”

“It’s _not_ the same world. That’s how I know who you are in the first place. Look, it’s complicated.”

“Try me.”

They stared at each other for a short moment. Dresden lowered his gaze first. He shook his head, chugged some of his beer, and sighed.

“Fine,” he said. “I was trying not to give you an existential crisis right off the bat, but _fine_. You mentioned Wakanda and Thanos. That doesn’t just tell me you’re not from around here, it tells me that I already know quite a bit about your world. You have that cool metal arm I just broke, and I found you smack in the middle of Winter. It really wasn’t that hard to add two plus two from there.”

“You still aren’t making sense. If it was really a different world, how would you even know about any of that?”

Dresden looked very intently at this bottle of beer and said, with a perfectly straight face:

“I read it in a comic book.”

Bucky’s first instinct was, of course, to tell the wizard to stop bullshitting him. But then he looked at Dresden’s face - he was still avoiding his gaze - and there was this sudden sinking feeling.

“… oh, God.”

“ _Please_ don’t have an existential crisis. That’s not my area of expertise at all.”

He couldn’t hold back a nervous laugh. It probably made Dresden’s worries about him having a mental breakdown even worse, but he couldn’t help it. This whole situation was insane. He took a large gulp of his beer, even though he knew it wouldn’t have much of an effect on him. It was the principle of the thing.

“Earlier today,” he said at last, and then he had to take a moment because he was laughing _again_ before he went on, “earlier today, I was fighting aliens with a space raccoon, and I thought shit couldn’t get any weirder.”

“In my defense,” said Dresden, “I was hoping to find a way to break it to you gently.”

“… yeah. To be fair, I don’t think that’s possible.”

“Right.” The wizard tapped his fingers on the table. “Uh- Mister Barnes-”

“Bucky,” he corrected automatically. Dresden - well, _Harry_ now, he supposed - looked kind of relieved.

“Bucky,” he agreed. “Look, there _are_ people who can probably help get you back home, but I’m going to have to make some phone calls and it’ll take some time until we can meet. I know you’re in a hurry, and I’m used to working fast, but you’re stuck at least until tonight or so.”

“Yeah, I figured as much,” Bucky sighed. “All right. One problem at a time. I need a sling for the arm or it’ll keep annoying me.”

“We’ll ask Mac, I’m sure he’ll lend us something. But first, lunch.”

As if on cue, Mac showed up bringing two huge plates of steaks and fries. It was really satisfying, in that way the simplest meals often are. Bucky felt much better prepared to face the future now that he had eaten something.

“So, these people you need to talk to,” he asked after a while. “Are they wizards too?”

“One of them is,” Harry replied. “The others are… harder to explain.”

“Really? How much worse can it get?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say worse. But it’s pretty weird. First there’s Bob,” he said. “He’s a spirit of intellect. Think of him as a kind of snarky, skull-shaped encyclopedia.”

Bucky nodded. It sounded weird, yes, but also like a reasonable way to get information. For certain values of ‘reasonable’.

“And then who else?” he asked.

“Then,” Harry said, and there was a barely noticeable moment of hesitation, “we should find out if Winter has some answers.”

“Wait, I thought Winter was a place,” Bucky interrupted, confused. “You said it’s where we met.”

“It’s a lot of things. And your day’s about to get even weirder, because there’s no good way to say this. How much do you know about the Faerie Courts?”

Bucky stared at him for a moment.

“Are you kidding me?”

“Come on. After all the stuff I’ve told you already, why would I make _this_ up?”

The worst part, Bucky thought, was realizing that he had a good point there. Faeries were almost tame after how the rest of this conversation had been going. Still, the whole situation was starting to add up. He was doing his best not to look or sound as overwhelmed at as he felt, but he could feel a headache coming, and it must have shown.

“Sorry,” said Harry. “I think I might be doing that infamous wizard thing where we talk too much all at once.”

“It’s not that bad,” Bucky lied. “I guess I just need some time to process it.”

Harry gave him a thoughtful look, then nodded.

“Tell you what. I can go make those phone calls and I’ll tell you if I found something useful when I come back. You’ll be fine here, and if you get bored, there’s always beer.”

Bucky took another sip of his beer. Once again, he didn’t have much of a choice. Might as well roll with it.

“Sounds like a plan.”

 

* * *

 

Staying at Mac’s for a while was actually kind of nice. Nobody bothered him - but they didn’t act scared of him or give him weird looks, either. Who knew the kind of people they were used to seeing in this place.

Harry had paid before leaving, which was just as well, since he didn’t have any money on him. That hadn’t exactly felt like a priority that morning. It also meant he didn’t have to be completely embarrassed about asking Mac for something to use as a sling.

“Wait,” was all the pub owner said. Then he walked into the kitchen.

A few moments later, he came back bringing a clean dishcloth. That’d work just fine. Bucky quickly tied it up and, with his limp arm out of the way, this wouldn’t be too different from just not having it. It was very light, too, so it didn’t bother him. Shuri was good at what she did.

He wondered how Shuri would react if she found out there was magic out there that could make technology stop working. Then, of course, that lead to wondering if she was still alive at all, so Bucky forced his brain to change the subject. He figured that a distraction might work better for that purpose.

“Is there anything I can do?” he asked Mac. “Help in the kitchen, or something? I can manage with just the one hand.”

After a moment’s consideration, Mac nodded. Bucky followed him into the kitchen in complete silence. He _really_ liked this guy.

There wasn’t a lot to do, but it looked like it might still be enough to keep Bucky busy until Harry returned. Mostly, he kept things in order while Mac worked on preparing the dishes. It was the kind of menial task he had grown used to in recent times, and he’d come to enjoy it.

That was something else that made him so angry about this whole thing, really. He was doing _fine_. He was safe and content and he had friends, so of course some alien asshole had to show up and ruin everything. And now he was stuck in a completely different place where he couldn’t even help to stop him. Even if he did manage to return home, who knew what he’d find there? Nothing good, he was sure.

“You’ll get help,” said Mac after a while, out of nowhere. Or so it felt to Bucky, at least. Maybe he just looked that bad.

“Sorry?”

“Dresden and his friends,” Mac explained. “Can’t promise everything will work out. But they’ll help.”

It might not have sounded like much, but it was hope. Bucky decided to hold on to it.

 

* * *

 

By the time Harry returned, it was night already. Mac’s pub was still full of people. Some of them had to be there for the food and the excellent beer, sure, but Bucky was starting to get the impression that the pub was also some kind of refuge. There was a lot of quiet, low-key weirdness in the room. He liked it. He felt like he could fit right in.

Still, he hoped the wizard had come back with some kind of information that meant he wouldn’t need to.

“Any news?” Bucky asked, as he went to join him at one of the tables. Mac had given them a couple of beers, which could be just a nice gesture or it could mean he thought they’d need them.

“Good and bad,” Harry said. “Want the short versions first?”

“Yes, please. You can go full wizard at me after I know the basics.”

Harry snorted, but didn’t argue the wording.

“All right, good news first: you weren’t kidnapped by faeries. I’ve asked around my Winter friends. If it had been anyone from there, we’d know.”

“Then how did I get here?”

“That’s the bad news,” he replied. “I still haven’t figured that out. But, hey, knowing Winter didn’t bring you here on purpose is _really_ good news.”

Bucky frowned, thoughtful. There was something about the way he’d phrased that that rubbed him the wrong way.

“I’m not sure I like that ‘on purpose’ part.”

Harry nodded and passed him one of the beer bottles.

“Bob thinks maybe you did end up here because of faerie magic, even if it was an accident. You left your own world because of whatever it was that Thanos did, but because of the Winter connection, you ended up in the Nevernever.”

Bucky narrowed his eyes.

“You know that’s just a code name, right?”

“I’m not so sure, actually,” Harry said. “When I first met you, I thought you were Sidhe.”

“So that’s why you asked me if I was human,” Bucky realized. “I thought you were guessing alien.”

“Now, _that_ would be new even for me. Which would be bad, because then I couldn’t help you. Seriously, you’re in the least worst case scenario right now.”

“If you say so.”

“Hey, at least I’ve got a lead. We know this has to do with you being the Winter Soldier—”

“Not anymore,” Bucky interrupted. It must have come out as more forceful than he intended, because Harry raised his hands in a placating gesture.

“Fair enough. _Were_ , then. Just hear me out. Mortals can have connections to the Faerie Courts. I’m not sure what’s going on in your case, exactly, but it’s gotta be relatively strong if it led you to the middle of Winter. And, well, to me.” Harry snorted, and raised his beer as if for a toast. “No judgment here, you know. I’m the Winter Knight after all. Team Unwilling Hit Men.”

Bucky was starting to feel like his head was spinning. Harry did sound like he had a lot of experience with this - _all_ of this, apparently, and not just the weird magic part. Instead of reassuring him, it almost made things worse. It meant he was probably right.

“But it can’t… look, it’s just not possible. There aren’t even faeries in my world.”

“That you know of.”

“Even if there were,” he insisted, even though by this point he was half sure that he was just being stubborn for no reason. “HYDRA wouldn’t get involved with that, it’s not their style.”

“It’s _exactly_ their style. Look, don’t think Fae as in cute Victorian flower drawings. Think Fae as in Odin.”

As much as he hated to admit it, Bucky didn’t have a good argument against that. The whole thing had started with that stupid Tesseract after all.

“Oh,” was all he managed to say at first. And then: “Well, shit.”

“That’s right. Which is why we need to get you the hell out of here as soon as possible,” said Harry. Bucky must have given him a look, because he sighed and explained himself further. “Yes, we already knew it was urgent, but it’s _worse_. There’s a very high chance that you do have some form of Winter magic in you, like it or not. The Courts are big on balance, and there’s no Summer Soldier, so if Summer figures out you’re around here they’re gonna be pissed. And when faeries are mad at you, they really don’t care if it’s actually your fault or not.”

It sounded pretty bad, even for Bucky’s frankly skewed standards. He finished the rest of his beer in just one go.

“So,” he asked at last, “do you know how to send me back?”

“I know someone who knows. _And_ I already called him. He’ll meet us in the bird sanctuary in couple of hours.”

“Seriously, a park in the middle of night? That’s not suspicious at all.”

“I promise it makes sense,” said Harry. “We’re going to meet one of the most powerful wizards in the world and ask him to open an interdimensional portal. Things might get pretty spectacular. It’s better if there aren’t any bystanders.”

“Hm.” Bucky grumbled a little to himself.  “That does makes sense. I still don’t like it.”

“It’s our best shot,” Harry insisted. “Possibly our only one. If there’s anyone who can send you back to your world, it’s the Gatekeeper.”

“Hey, I didn’t say no,” he pointed out. He was far too aware that it was the only chance they had. “Do we get to at least have dinner first?”

“Of course. No interdimensional travel on an empty stomach.”

 

* * *

 

Mac didn’t quite wish them luck before they left, but he nodded at them solemnly, which in his case was pretty much the same. Bucky couldn’t help but feel a bit nostalgic already. If everything went well tonight, he’d go back home and never see the place again. And if it didn’t go well - then he’d have much bigger problems.

The best thing he could do, for the time being, was focus on the immediate situation.

He was sure the sanctuary was a nice place, in daylight and better circumstances. But right now it was only putting him on edge. Every noise, every movement in the shadows, felt like a threat. And the wizard they were supposed to meet wasn’t here yet.

“Are you sure he’s coming?” Bucky asked.

“He’ll be here.”

Harry spoke with conviction, and he nodded as he did so, but it was really telling that he wasn’t looking at Bucky when he replied. He was checking out the place instead, either because he shared Bucky’s worries about potential danger or because he was hoping to see that Gatekeeper guy. If he really was trustworthy - and there was no reason to think otherwise - then something had to be keeping him away. Something strong or complicated enough to stop a powerful wizard. Bucky didn’t even want to imagine what that could be.

As it turned out, he didn’t have the time to dwell on thoughts anyway. The hushed sounds of nature all around him suddenly turned into thundering hooves and breaking branches. There was no warning for the change. That was not an animal getting louder as it approached them: it was as if someone had dropped an already galloping horse only a few yards away. Given his recent experience with magic and portals, Bucky wouldn’t have been surprised if that was exactly the case.

Except for the part where it wasn’t a horse at all.

The creature charging towards them only looked like one in the most superficial way. It was bigger, much stronger, and covered in black scales. And then there was that huge serrated horn.

Bucky barely had time to jump out of its way. He rolled up into a crouch and saw Harry standing with his back to him, his arm raised like a shield again just like when they first met. When the creature inevitably charged again, it stopped and bounced as if it had hit a wall. The problem was that it just made it angry enough to keep trying.

“I hate unicorns,” the wizard muttered.

“ _That’s_ a unicorn?”

“Probably. It could be something else shapeshifting _into_ a unicorn,” he said. “Either way, it’s trouble.”

“No shit.” Bucky would have loved to have a functional left arm right now. Or a gun, that’d be even better. Instead, he picked up the biggest of the broken branches the creature had left lying around, and hoped it would do. “How do we beat it?”

“We don’t. Summer could take it as a provocation even if they started it. I don’t want to take that risk.” Harry paused for a moment, then turned to look at him over his shoulder. “Move aside when I drop the shield. I’m gonna try something dumb.”

Story of his life, Bucky thought. At least this time he was getting some warning.

When the unicorn charged the following time, Harry lowered his arm to drop the barrier. Then he opened a Way. Bucky wouldn’t have needed to stand aside: the creature, unable to slow down in time, went straight through the opening between realms. Harry closed it again immediately and sighed in relief.

“I can’t believe that worked,” Bucky said.

“Never underestimate the Looney Tunes school of fighting.”

That stupid joke made Bucky laugh a lot harder than it should have. Maybe it was the sudden stress relief. Yeah, he’d blame it on that.

“You think it’ll come back?” he asked, once he managed to regain his breath. Harry shook his head.

“That should send the message that we’re not engaging. And even if they send it back, it’ll take them a while. It should be enough for us to meet with the Gatekeeper.”

If he shows up at all, Bucky didn’t say. Which was just as well, because then a bright orange portal opened in front of him and two men stepped out.

“About time,” Harry muttered. But he was smiling.

“Forgive the delay,” one of the newcomers said. “I had an unexpected meeting on the way here.”

The Gatekeeper looked… well, the way Bucky would have expected a wizard to look, he supposed. It was probably the robes. He also looked, to put it simply, like a badass. He was very tall, even taller than Harry, and one of his eyes was a silver ball surrounded by scars.

The man standing next to him was another obvious wizard, this one wearing a long red cloak. He was also the reason they were late, but didn’t look apologetic at all about it.

“It’s been a complicated day for everyone,” was all he said.

“Tell me about it,” Harry said, and Bucky got the impression that he was trying and failing not to sound impressed. “Doctor Strange?”

“You know this guy?”

“He’s from your world,” said the Gatekeeper. “Which is fortunate. Traveling with a magic user, it will be easier to make sure you reach the right place and time.”

Right. So that was a subtler way of saying Harry knew him from comic books. It didn’t seem to bother Strange at all, but it still gave Bucky a headache to think about it, so he focused on the most important part.

“You really can send me back, then?”

“I can,” the Gatekeeper assured him, “and I _have_ to. It’s part of my duties to keep intruders out. Even accidental ones.”

“So… you won’t get into any trouble for helping me,” Bucky said, mostly thinking aloud. Wizard bureaucracy sounded more and more needlessly complicated the more he found out about it. The Gatekeeper smiled at him, amused.

“Precisely. It’s in everyone’s best interests, yours included, if I send you home. Both of you.”

“It’s in our world’s best interests, too. We need—” Strange stopped talking mid-sentence, stared at him as if seeing him for the first time, and frowned. “What happened to your arm?”

“Uh, magic,” Harry replied, before Bucky could get a word in. “Obviously.”

Strange didn’t seem to find it obvious at all. In fact, he looked kind of horrified.

“Your magic interferes with technology? That’s barbaric!”

“Hey, now, you come into my universe--”

“Guys,” Bucky interrupted. Sometimes, it was nice to still have some of the old Winter Soldier cred. They did indeed shut up and look at him. “Priorities?”

“Right.” Harry raised his hands in a placating gesture. “I’ll kick your ass later, Strange.”

“You can try.”

“I like you a lot better when you’re just ink.”

“ _Guys_ —”

“… yes, of course.” This time it was Strange who spoke first. “I was going to say we need to go back and help. Right now, Thanos is winning. There’s no easy way to say this. Half the universe is gone.”

It was as if time stood still. Half the _universe_. That was— it was too big a concept to even be properly shocked. Bucky closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and tried to calm down. It didn’t work.

“Hell’s Bells,” Harry whispered beside him, all attempts at levity gone now.

“We can’t fix this,” Bucky said. He felt like he was going to start laughing just from the tension. “What good could we do? Even if we get back—”

“It will help,” the Gatekeeper interrupted. His voice was so authoritative, all of a sudden, that Bucky almost believed him. He really wanted to, in any case.

“ _How_?”

“You will be back,” he replied. “You two will be living proof that it _can_ be fixed. That there is a solution, even for this.”

“But we don’t know what it is.”

“We do,” said Strange. “I’ve seen the future where we win. We’re on the right track.”

“And that’s all you’re saying about it, isn’t it?”

Strange’s only answer was a small smile, half apologetic, half knowing. The Gatekeeper was going for the cryptic smile routine too. Harry, on the other hand, just sighed and gave Bucky a friendly pat on the shoulder.

“Looks like you’re starting to understand wizards,” he said. “If it makes you feel better, I have no idea what’s going on either.”

That didn’t quite make Bucky laugh, but he couldn’t hold back a tiny smile, and that was an improvement already. He certainly appreciated the intention.

“Just jump in and hope for the best, huh?” he chuckled. “At least that’s nothing new.”

“I’m glad you think so, because there’s no time to lose,” the Gatekeeper said. “An explanation was in order, but if we wait much longer we’ll be pushing our luck.”

“I don’t want to meet another unicorn,” Bucky agreed. He turned towards Harry and offered his hand. “Pity we didn’t meet in better circumstances. I think we could’ve had fun.”

Harry shook it and grinned.

“Hey, you never know. I might figure out how to go and annoy you guys over there. I’ve always wanted to meet Spider-Man.”

Bucky was a moment away of telling him he had terrible taste. Then he didn’t, because that would amount to admitting that Spider-Man had kicked his ass. He’d like to keep at least a little bit of his dignity intact. The Gatekeeper saved him from having to come up with a suitable reply for that.

“Are you ready?” he asked. Bucky nodded.

Whatever the Gatekeeper did then, it didn’t look like when Harry opened a Way. It was less like a window to somewhere else and more like a tear in the fabric of the universe itself. He didn’t see his own world on the other side; in fact, he didn’t see a place at all. Not even space. Instead, there was a dizzying mess of abstract shapes and colors he had no names for.

“You sure we’ll find our way from here?”

“We will,” Strange assured him. “We’re still anchored to our realm. If your connection with Winter was enough to get you to the Nevernever, imagine how strong the pull to our original world will be.”

Bucky didn’t ask how he knew that. He mentally filed it as ‘a wizard thing’ that he didn’t need to understand. But it was reassuring, in a way. It seemed clear that these people weren’t just improvising. He was going home.

“All right.” He squared his shoulders. “Let’s do this.”

“Good luck,” Harry told them.

One last time, Bucky looked back at him and grinned. He nodded at the Gatekeeper, too, who nodded back. There was something about his expression that made him feel confident, somehow. As if walking into some indescribable realm in between universes was no big deal. This would work, he realized. He didn’t - couldn’t - know how or why, but it would work. He was ready.

_Just jump in and hope for the best._

He stepped into the portal.


End file.
